


A Legion of Hideous Minions

by kuroiyousei



Series: November Quick Fics [9]
Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Angela & Broadway (briefly implied), Canon Setting, Elisa & Goliath (briefly implied), F/M, Misunderstanding/lack of communication, POV: Miscellaneous (Angela)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroiyousei/pseuds/kuroiyousei
Summary: Angela finds the castle overrun by unexpected enemies.





	A Legion of Hideous Minions

Angela wouldn't exactly call her ascent 'panicked,' since it was a more controlled haste and (she liked to think) a more controlled attitude than that, but she certainly clawed her way up the last few yards of the castle wall a little less carefully than usual. 

It had been merely a leisurely sweep of the surrounding area upon awakening, a brief glide about this immediate part of a city she was only just getting to know, but it had at first startled and subsequently alarmed her. And now she finished her quick trip back home with a climb up over the crenelated walls to inform her clan that New York had gone completely mad. 

Finding no one in sight in the courtyard where she landed and feeling a little too unnerved to shout, she made her way through the first door at hand and into a pleasant lounge that had probably once been a war room or something similar but that had been fitted up lately with more modern furnishings. Comfortable seats called sofas formed a square with open corners in the center, while a gleaming bar stood to one side, and the hangings that, now as a thousand years ago, worked to keep out the October drafts were machine-woven blankets from a Mexican street vendor rather than hand-crafted tapestries depicting battles long forgotten. 

At first Angela believed herself alone in the room, and would have passed immediately onward looking for someone to tell about the chaos many storeys down... but as the heavy oak door closed behind her with an inevitable noise despite its well maintained hinges, a figure previously motionless at the bar whirled suddenly to face her. Angela took a step backward in shock, wings returning to a startled half-open position from where they'd been clasped around her shoulders. 

He couldn't be anything but a vampire, with that mottled skin as pale as death and those extra-long, protruding incisors startling even to one not remiss in the tooth department herself and from one of which dripped a viscous red substance. She hadn't thought gargoyles capable of becoming vampires, but the stranger's dolichocephalic face and the wings that sprang up behind him in as startled a movement as that of her own marked him as no human, even if the black and white suit and red cape he wore looked more like something designed by that race than the simpler garments gargoyles typically favored. 

For one moment he stared at her, obviously surprised at her abrupt presence. Then his mouth opened into a smile, baring the expanse of the nearest overlong tooth and its gob of blood slowly sliding downward toward the direly pointed tip. When he spoke, it was in an accent she recognized from one of the 'movies' Broadway had recently taken her to -- maybe the humans, ignorant though they were of so many things supernatural, had gotten at least that part correct. 

"Ah, a beautiful gargoyle voman. Perhaps _you_ vill be villing to donate your blood to my noble cause." 

Angela still didn't panic, but at this point she was definitely a long step closer. Monsters rioting in the streets below, looting food from homes, and now one had found his way all the way up here to the castle above the clouds? 

She considered her options. Vampires were said to be immensely strong, fast, and difficult to defeat. And though some gargoyle clans, in other areas of the world, reputedly hunted them -- the night should stalk the night, after all -- they were far from here and far from her range of experience. She didn't know if she could take a gargoyle vampire one-on-one, especially unarmed as she was. Her eyes darted toward the opposite door, calculating her chances of escape. If she could just find some of the others, they could battle side-by-side and even the odds. 

"You can run," the vampire said, and for all the calm in his voice she thought him on the brink of laughter -- at her relative weakness? "...but you can't hide. I am Count Mordacula, lord of vampires, and my host of minions from the undervorld is loyal only to me! Your puny castle doesn't stand a chance!" 

Were the monsters ransacking the city his servants, then? Angela had to find the others, assess the situation and plan a counterattack, before the situation got any worse. Without answering the vampire lord -- she wouldn't be hypnotized by any spell of words! -- she made what she hoped would be an unexpected dash for the exit. Feeling no gnash of sharp teeth or scrape of undead talons, she darted through the door and slammed it behind her, fumbling with the lock as if that would do any good. Then she raced down the corridor beyond. 

What had once been the Great Hall and, she supposed, still was -- though it had become more a museum dedicated to physical mementos of adventures past -- seemed less defensible than other parts of the castle keep, having multiple entrances whose banded doors were more for show than anything these days, but it lay at the end of this hallway, so there she went. So fast did she tear inside, in fact, that she skidded to a halt on scraping claws, unfurling her wings again slightly to stop herself, as she entered the larger space and looked around. 

This time she had no illusions about being alone, as the great figure before her would have been hard to miss. And lucky she considered herself that she hadn't eaten anything yet tonight, for the abomination in front of her might have caused her to lose it if she had. She'd never seen anything like it -- was it zombie or unholy construct or simply a walking nightmare? Its belly gaped open, showing rotting green intestines only held in place by what appeared to be metal bars grafted to the withering edges of the rent, and from behind its head stretched a third fleshy arm bearing a huge hook ready to impale an unwary enemy -- assuming they hadn't already passed out from sheer horror. 

On catching sight of her, the creature opened its mouth, disclosing a mass of sticky brown as if its tongue had decayed into a stretchy mass, and let out a muffled groan as if trying to speak words long since lost to its cold, dead brain. Gagging, Angela took off running again so fast she left scores in the flagstones. She had to find the others. It seemed Count Mordacula hadn't lied: he _did_ command a legion of hideous minions, and -- as long as she remained its only defender -- the castle _didn't_ stand a chance. She needed her father's strength, Hudson's sword, and Elisa's gun. She would even welcome some of Xanatos' appalling mechanical suits right about now. 

To the sound of the inarticulate monstrosity's gurgling behind her, she made her way up a spiral staircase to the keep's second floor and into a network of tighter hallways and chambers used as bedrooms by the various members of the small clan. The first with an unlocked door was the one Lexington used to tinker with his outlandish modern gadgets, and into this she ducked, hoping to find some sign of where everyone had gone. This time, though, panic was so close she could taste it, and she actually gave a little squeak at what the creaking hinges disclosed at their unfolding. 

The place was overrun with spiders uniform in shape and size, that shape beyond unnerving and that size positively outlandish. She'd seen tarantulas; she'd seen funnel web spiders and camel spiders and a _giant spider god_ , for goodness' sake... but this many spiders the breadth of a small shield moving with clacking, whirring limbs in motions almost identical was enough to unnerve even the most seasoned world traveler. And that was before their dark master, hearing her cry, whirled toward her: three times the size of its brood, it moved more quickly and fluidly as well, and, seeing her, leaped forward with its many greenish legs, glowing webs criss-crossing between them, waving. Angela stumbled backward from the room, skin crawling, again slamming the door... but unfortunately, this one locked only from the inside. 

Obviously in just the time she'd spend gliding around the neighborhood -- an hour at most -- the castle's residents had been driven out. Thank goodness she didn't yet have worse to suspect, since almost no blood and no signs of corpses had she seen. But who knew how many more of Count Mordacula's minions had replaced her family? Though a skilled warrior and learning the ways of tactics and castle defense, Angela on her own was out of her depth and wrestling with fear. Best to get away from here as quickly as possible. 

As she navigated the same smaller halls, now away from Lex's spider-filled room, passing as quietly as she could Hudson's partially open door from which an eerie glow and a menacing growl emanated, she thought fast. Where might the clan go at a time like this? Into the Xanatos building to seek aid from their uneasy allies? But the monsters she'd seen thus far didn't seem capable of flight, and must have reached the castle somehow... how else but up through the building from the ground level? It seemed probable, therefore, that the building was also overrun. 

Perhaps they'd gone over the side and all the way down underground to seek reinforcements among the Mutates? Not unlikely -- and a practical regrouping option for Angela herself even if she didn't find the others there. She hastened with steps as muffled as she could make them around the tight corners and outside. 

On the battlement, she nearly ran smack into two figures that were surveying the courtyard below as if searching for something. The first, clearly a human or human-like magician of some sort in black robes, stood even taller than Angela if her wide-brimmed pointed hat counted for height, and turned to regard the gargoyle with a face as green as an apple. The other loomed over them both, hat notwithstanding: a great winged monkey, bulky and hairy and glowering of brow over deep-set eyes. It too turned immediately toward Angela as she emerged so close beside them on the stone terrace. 

Succumbing for one brief moment to the panic that had been threatening all along, she leaped haphazardly to the wall, tore her way upward, and launched herself into space from the top before her wings were even fully unfurled. 

*** 

Goliath lifted his monkey mask, which he wasn't too sure about in the first place, the better to watch as his daughter scrambled unexpectedly up the great blocks and dove off the castle's side after a single glance at him. At his side, Elisa likewise snatched off her obstructive witch's hat, letting the hair she'd styled into a scraggly, unkempt imitation of is usual sleek shine shift slightly in the autumn breeze. Removing their eyes from the spot where Angela had disappeared, they shared a look involving the same grimace of sudden dismay. Before they could say anything, though, the door behind them opened again and Brooklyn, in complete makeup and evening wear, emerged from the keep. 

"Hey, did you guys see Angela?" he wondered. "I tested my accent out on her, but she didn't say anything, just ran off." 

Again before any answer could be made, Broadway appeared, and they all shifted along the battlement to make space for him; he seemed even bigger than usual with all the cosmetic putty and one wing done up like an extra arm. He was smacking his lips, and his voice still sounded gooey as he remarked, "Remind me never to put that much caramel in my mouth all at once ever again! I couldn't say anything to Angela, and I think I grossed her out! Did she come out here?" 

Lexington was the next to forestall an answer, creeping from the doorway on all fours due to difficulties walking upright in the extra-legs harness. He seemed to have caught the end of Broadway's statement, for he put in regretfully, "I think _I_ scared her with my remote-control spiders." He brightened a touch, though, as he added, "At least I know they work!" 

"But where _is_ she?" Broadway wondered, now sounding a little concerned. 

Both Goliath and Elisa looked again at the wall's summit where the object of their conversation had disappeared. In some chagrin Elisa said, "I don't think any of us told her about our costumes." 

Goliath shook his head, and his tone was even more regretful than his human mate's. "I don't think any of us told her about Halloween."

**Author's Note:**

> This is for iamkatsudone's November Quick Fics 2018 prompt, "All the gargoyles and Elisa and halloween shenanigans?" It's not quite _all_ the gargoyles, but there are certainly Halloween shenanigans! (The WoW abomination costume is a total anachronism, though XD)


End file.
